Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Aaarrgghh

Sorry that the posts have been a little sparse lately.

I have exams coming up very soon, and I haven't been putting in enough study to feel comfortable about them. You know that feeling you have when your exams are getting closer and closer but Dr Phil suddenly looks far more interesting than metabolism diagrams?

It's that feeling.

Unfortunately it also seems to be the busiest time of the year socially, as I have family about to move away interstate and in-laws who like to drop in on a whim from interstate and expect everybody else to drop everything and spend time with them. I love them, but I'm expecting to see them a whole lot less when their only grandchildren (not mine) have moved more than a thousand kilometers away from us.

So, everything is coming to a head and quite franky, I will be happy to pass this year. I know I felt that before the mid-year, but I think I was slightly more organised and motivated then. Oh well.

Also, why do doctors who went through the old Australian 6-year undergraduate system feel obliged to trash-talk the new 4-year graduate medical courses? Most of our undergraduate medical courses are shortening to 5 years, anyway. Surely a 4-year graduate course after a science/health degree completed by more mature people compares favourably to a 5-year undergraduate course completed by somebody who could start the course as a 16-year-old?

3 comments:

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i agree with you girl, i don't know about your uni but where i am studying the 4 years seem much longer than the equivalent 6 yr undergrad degree. In first year we started in late Jan, and finish in early Dec, so im sure we cover the same amount of stuff in 4 yrs anyway. the undergrad uni here has jokes about our uni, along the lines of us post-grad students needing child care to go out on weekends :) Good luck with your dash towards exams.

To a large degree, we all look upon our own training with some fondness. This leads to some bias.

Furthermore, we are then asked as senior clinicians to teach students when the whole focus of teaching has changed. Students don't know what we expect them to know, they aren't interested or ready to learn what we have to teach.

This is very frustrating as a clinical teacher, and our only conclusion is that the courses are not delivering what we expect.

Not to say that the shorter courses are better than the longer ones - the curriculum is changing in both.